


nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

by chaosdunk



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Consensual Violence, Erotic Violence, M/M, Sibling Incest, Stabbing, Stabbing as Therapy, violence as sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:02:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27568696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosdunk/pseuds/chaosdunk
Summary: His chest is perfect, no hint of old scars, but Vergil's hands ghost across the skin like they’re soothing old wounds. The look in his eyes is still hazy and unfocused, a far cry from the laser intensity of his waking hours. "I want you to take the Yamato and drive it into me."Dante notices Vergil hasn't been sleeping. Vergil proposes an unconventional solution.
Relationships: Dante/Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 122





	nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from William Blake's "And did those feet in ancient time" because I'm creatively bankrupt and naming fics is hard.
> 
> There's no actual fucking and the relationship isn't explicit, but I just wrote 2000+ words of stabbing as a thinly veiled metaphor for sex. I'm not going to jerk you around on this; it's DV incest.

Vergil hasn't slept well in days.

It's the little things that give it away: the deep graveditch bags under his eyes, the imperceptible slowness in their sparring sessions, the slight shake of his hands when he thumbs at the Yamato. Vergil composes himself with utmost poise and control, and Dante only notices because he knows his brother like he knows himself. 

He also screams himself awake at night sometimes, so there's that, too. 

It's just a little scream, cut off and killed the moment it's born, and Dante pretends he doesn't notice because drawing attention to it would mean Vergil stabbing him somewhere painful, but it's starting to get concerning. He wakes up in a daze, almost lost, like he doesn't know where he is anymore, curled protectively around his chest. Dante catches him checking himself, meticulously, like he expects to find something that isn't there. Dante's been through enough shit to know this isn't normal. Well, maybe normal for people with their kind of issues, but like, not _normal_ normal. 

Having to watch Vergil like this sucks. It leaves Dante feeling a very special flavor of helplessness, and despite how far they've come together, it reminds him a little of being back at the Temen-ni-gru. Shut out. Left behind. 

Vergil, falling, and cutting away the only hand reaching out to help. 

He's a stupid, petty jackass, but he's _Dante's_ stupid, petty jackass. If he's going to lose his brother to his own head again, then what was the point of Nero punching him in the face? Of suplexing his dad atop the Qliphoth? Of going to hell in the first stupid fucking place? No way. Nuh uh. They're going to talk about this like the adults they are. 

The next time Vergil jerks awake with a wounded sound, Dante's by his side in an instant, a hand on his shoulder. Predictably, Vergil tries to push him away, but Dante refuses to move, heavy like a stone. 

"Come on, Vergil. What's going on?"

"Mm. Nightmares." Cool. One word answers. Vergil's time as V may have softened him a bit, but sometimes getting him to talk is like trying to pry open a clam. 

"Well, _yeah_ , I can _see_ that. But this is the fifth time you've woken up like this. It's more than just nightmares."

"They're just old memories, Dante. Nothing with which you need to concern yourself." 

Spardas don’t really do emotional availability, but Dante presses on. He doesn’t want to let this go without a fight. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

For the first time since he woke up, Vergil really _looks_ at him, and Dante would be offended by Vergil's surprise at the offer if this wasn't clearly a case of Vergil realizing he _could_ ask. After being alone for so many years, it probably hadn't occurred to him that someone might actually want to help him. 

His mouth opens, shuts, opens again, as though he wants to say something but can't bring himself to put a voice to his want. A part of Dante wants to hurry him through it, say something quippy to break the tension, but even he knows how delicate this moment is. So all he says is a quiet, serious, "Please."

Maybe it's the _please_ that does it. Vergil sighs and rubs his face, the exhaustion of every sleepless night clearly written in the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. 

"Stab me with the Yamato."

What.

"What." 

His chest is perfect, no hint of old scars, but Vergil's hands ghost across the skin like they’re soothing old wounds. The look in his eyes is still hazy and unfocused, a far cry from the laser intensity of his waking hours. "I want you to take the Yamato and drive it into me." 

Ha haaaaa _aaaaaaaa_. "Yeah, no. Do you even know what you sound like right now? I'm not gonna start stabbing you willy-nilly. What the hell."

Vergil grits his teeth. "Then I'll have to do it myself."

Dante's brain hits the brakes. His mental train of thought goes careening off the rails and crashes everywhere. The city is going to have a doozy of a time cleaning up this wreck. "You're crazy if you think I'll let you do that. The last time you jammed the Yamato into yourself—"

"You misunderstand my intentions—"

"—You had stolen your own son's arm—"

"—I will not be repeating the mistakes of the past—"

"—And you raised a blood-sucking demon tree that wiped out a whole city—"

" _Then all the more reason for you to do it for me._ "

Dante jaw shuts with a click. Well. Vergil got him there. Yamato needs technique, power, and intent. Dante has two out of three: not nearly enough to go splitting Vergil in two again. But still. Why is Vergil even asking this of him? What the hell is going on? 

"Why do you want this so bad? Why are you so dead set on turning yourself into a demonic pincushion?"

Silence.

Vergil refuses to look at him. The quiet stretches between them like a yawning chasm, and Dante is just about to give up on ever getting an explanation from his emotionally constipated idiot brother when he finally lets out a breath.

"Mundus tortured me," he says, slowly. Each word is clipped and clearly enunciated, like Vergil is taking great care to not let his control slip. "He drove spears of corruption through my body and left me like that before twisting me into the creature you faced at Mallet Island. Though my body is healed of any trace of his touch, I still feel the scars." A hand comes up, lingers at his chest. "I'm not so foolish to think I can cut my traumas out of me anymore, but I want something new to take their place so that they're not all I have."

Oh, fuck. 

Mundus. 

And just like that, Dante understands. They've never talked about what happened after Vergil fell into the underworld, but Dante knows he would never have served Mundus willingly. Not after what happened to their family. The pain and torture needed to break Vergil into a slave of their mother's murderer would have been unimaginable. He thinks back to V's familiars facing him on the way to the top of the Qliphoth, of the way they willingly threw themselves against Dante to free Vergil of the memories of that torment. If they were so eager to die, what else might be rattling around Vergil's head? No wonder his brother wants them replaced. 

Dante knows better than to let even a hint of his realization show; Vergil will clam up and refuse on principle if he thinks Dante is doing this out of pity. Him and his stupid, arrogant pride. 

"You think something like this would really stop the nightmares?"

"Nothing can just _make_ nightmares stop." Vergil, elegant as ever, rolls his eyes. "But there would be something else to focus on after I wake. It would... bring me a modicum of comfort, if you did this for me." 

There it is, laid bare. The naked admission is almost too much for Dante to handle; spend too long thinking about it, and he might just emotionally implode from the honesty. 

"Okay. Fine. But you're gonna listen to me." He rolls his shoulders, listens to his neck pop, and tries not to pay attention to the look of relief that crosses his brother's face. "Lay back down. And take off your shirt; this is the only one you've got while we're down here." 

Vergil strips with uncharacteristic obedience, which is how Dante knows this is serious. Even as kids they clashed over the smallest things; as an adult, Vergil is just kind of a contrarian asshole. He always has his own ideas about how things should be done, and they are usually to the detriment of everyone else around him. His brother listening to him without criticism or complaint is totally surreal.

When Vergil presses Yamato's sheathe into Dante's hands, the enormity of it all starts to hit him: _oh fuck we're really doing this._ He's going to stab the shit out of his brother in some sort of, what? Weird therapy session? Self-harm substitute? What the fuck is this? 

“You ready?” he asks, in a naked bid to buy time.

Vergil gives him a look that could rust steel. “Just do it.”

Fuck.

This isn’t the first time Dante’s wielded the Yamato, but it is the first he’s used it against his brother. His palms sweat from a mix of nervousness and anticipation, but the braided cords of the grip keep him grounded. This is fine. It’s fine! This isn’t totally the fucking weirdest thing he’s ever done, it’s _fine._

There’s no universe where you can stab someone “gently,” but Dante sure as hell tries. Maybe it’s worse and more painful like this instead of getting it over quickly, but he thinks Vergil might kill him — or worse, do it himself — if Dante doesn’t do it exactly so. Yamato’s edge is otherworldly sharp, capable of cutting through the veil between dimensions, concepts, the boundary of man and devil. Dante’s seen what a well-honed blade can do, but those swords are pitifully, embarrassingly human. It takes no effort at all to sheathe the sword in the skin of Vergil’s ribcage, barely more to pierce muscle and organs. 

Vergil groans as the Yamato sinks into him, slow but relentless. He writhes up into the blade, wanting and willing, arching his back as much as one can when they’re pinned like a butterfly to a board. Nails on the border of a trigger gouge trenches into the dirt. Dante feels rather than hears Vergil’s breath stutter; he must have pierced a lung. It makes Dante all the more aware of his own breathing, of the way his own heartbeat thuds loudly in his ears, drowning out everything else.

It’s a dizzying feeling, to be in charge of Vergil’s pain. It suddenly hits him just how much trust has been placed in him. If Vergil wanted to, he could stop this all in an instant, either by word or by force, but he lies there and shudders, just taking what Dante’s giving him. He’s open and vulnerable in a way Dante hasn’t seen since they were children, and the fact that he’s even allowing Dante to witness him like this is staggering. Vergil is a creature of thorns and pride — it’s beneath him to show any hint of weakness. But here he is, letting Dante see such a fragile and delicate part of himself.

Dante stays like that until Vergil opens his eyes and nods. With a quick flick of his wrist, Dante rips Yamato free in a sudden hot arc of blood that sprays across his face. Vergil answers with a groan that cuts off into a wet, choking cough, blood splattering his lips, and for a moment they just sit together and bleed into the ground.

“You alright?” Dante asks.

“Again,” Vergil orders, low and imperious. There’s a gleam in his eyes Dante doesn’t know how to read, but he has a feeling it’s mirrored in his own.

Dante shrugs, all forced levity. “You’re the boss.”

He goes for the meat of the shoulder this time. Just a nice little palette cleanser after that doozy of a first stab, no major organs. Vergil’s not happy about it but Dante’s in charge, so _nyeh_. The tip of Yamato skitters for a hot second off the resisting bone of Vergil’s shoulder blade, but Dante holds him steady until they get it through. Vergil bends like he wants to curl around the blade, panting hard, and then he gets himself under control and nods to Dante again. 

Dante doesn’t know how many times he drives his brother’s sword into his brother’s body at his brother's command, and quite frankly he doesn’t want to think about it because every stab he makes is an echo of what Mundus has done. He’d much rather focus on the way Vergil’s body yields beneath his own, open and soft and yet so strong, stronger than everything he’s survived. 

Vergil finally whispers _last one_ and guides Dante to his heart. This is a bad idea. For all their power, the heart is still vulnerable; one wrong move and this could get very complicated, very quickly. But that's why Vergil asked him, isn't it? There's no one else he would trust with this. No one else he even could. 

Dante stabs down before he can chicken the fuck out from fear and a nameless emotion that threatens to bubble up and escape him. The sound Vergil makes is obscene, a low gut punch of a moan that teeters far, far too close to want. Blood fountains up from his chest, pulsing in time with the heart that struggles to beat around the blade. For a wild second something hot and electrifying blisters under Dante's skin — a feral, desperate need to crack open the bones of Vergil's ribcage like a gift and cradle his brother's beating heart. He wants to crawl under his skin, nestle next to lungs and organs, an intimacy no human could ever match. It's terrifying. It's tempting. Dante brutally stomps it down before he thinks too long about what it means.

When Vergil’s hands entwine with his own, grounding himself in simple, uncomplicated contact, it's a relief. Dante holds him through it, strokes those calloused fingers and the soft pad of his palm before twisting the sword in deeper, driving from him a breathless, keening noise. He can't help it — he traces the lines of Vergil's face like he's seeing it for the first time. They look so different, now. Dante sweeps his thumbs over cheekbones; the deep, sleepless pits under his eyes; along the curve of his lips. For a moment Vergil looks like he might bite his fingers off before Dante presses a kiss to his forehead. 

Vergil shudders underneath him, completely undone by this gentleness. Maybe he wanted this hard and fast and brutal, but Dante can't love like that. Not with his brother. Not anymore. They've fought so many times and Dante is just so tired of it all. Their family is a fucked up, broken thing that will probably never be completely mended. There's just too much history between them. But that doesn't mean he can't _try._

Slowly, carefully, Dante pulls Yamato free with barely a whisper. Vergil's body bows like he doesn't want it to leave, back arching, thudding back to the ground completely spent. He takes long, shaky gasps as his body desperately tries to piece itself back together, and Dante tries to not to let the sudden weight of what the fuck they were just doing completely poleax him. Holy _fuck._

The knees of Dante's pants are soaked through with blood. Vergil's hair is tacky with it. God only knows what his back looks like. They're both an utter mess, thoroughly wrecked and drenched in a metallic tang that's sure to draw demons from miles around, but there's an indolent satisfaction in Vergil's eyes that wasn't there before, so Dante can't bring himself to care very much. Getting drenched in the Qliphoth's veins was infinitely more disgusting, anyway. 

Dante props himself up on an elbow and flutters his eyelashes. "So. Was it good for you?"

Vergil honest-to-god _hisses_ , like some shitty stray cat that's shown up on Dante's doorstep, and tries to bat him away. " _Must_ you phrase it that way?" 

"What can I say? I have a way with words." He gathers Vergil up and cradles his brother to his chest, and for some godforsaken reason Vergil lets him. Even worse, Vergil presses back into him, warm and boneless with contentment. He reaches up with one hand to touch his now healed chest, unmarred and unbroken. What happened today won’t scar; it'd take much worse to leave a mark on either of them. But Vergil reverently touches each place he was cut like he can still see the wounds, new memories to chase away the old.

Even though Vergil is all bones and sharp edges, it's comfortable having him there. Calm. It's a bad idea to sleep like this in hell, but fuck, they both deserve it. Whatever. It's not like anything here could actually kill them. Dante drifts off, the furnace of his brother's embrace a comfort he had no idea he missed.

This time, when Vergil sleeps, it's peaceful and without dreams.


End file.
